“Ramparts” Magazine Exposes Secret CIA Funding of U.S. Student Group

The March 1967 issue of Ramparts magazine created a national sensation by publishing an exposé of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) secret funding of education groups, including primarily the National Student Association. The article was titled, “A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.” It was the first significant breach in the veil of secrecy surrounding the CIA, and the first revelation of secret funding of American organizations and journalists.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, Ramparts was the most important anti-war, counter-culture, general circulation magazines in the U.S. It was later revealed that the CIA learned of the forthcoming article and spied on the magazine and its writers in violation of the CIA charter that forbade the agency from spying within the United States.

Read about the CIA: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008)

Learn more about Ramparts Magazine: Peter Richardson, A Bomb In Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America (2009)